Category: Pudding

New College Puddings

Pudding, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century

New College Puddings is a recipe that has been around for centuries. It’s been on my radar for years, and when indexing recipes in manuscripts, it made frequent appearances. I was aware of the recipe basics – breadcrumbs, dried fruit, suet, fried – I acknowledged them, but never really paid much attention beyond wondering whether ‘new college puddings’ was just an updated version of a mysterious older recipe for ‘college puddings’. And the answer?

After some sleuthing, I discovered that they are named for New College, Oxford, founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, as The College of St Mary of Winchester in Oxford. It became known as ‘New College’ in order to distinguish it from the other college dedicated to St Mary (Oriel College), which had been founded in 1326. So the recipe was actually ‘NEW COLLEGE puddings’ rather than ‘NEW college puddings’. It’s funny to think that an almost-650 year-old institution was, at one time, considered the Johnny-come-lately, modern upstart. Disappointingly, searching the modern New College website brings up precisely zero references to puddings.

Moving on…

For a long time, the earliest recipe for New College Puddings was in the “The Compleat Housewife” by E___ S___ (thought to be by Eliza Smith, but the book originally only ever had the author’s initials, until she passed away that is, whereupon the publishers had free reign to make up any old tosh, which they did). Below is the recipe from the 1728 Second Edition.

New College Puddings recipe from “The Compleat Housewife” by E.S., second edition, 1728.

Later in the century, Hannah Glasse included a recipe for Oxford Puddings (see below) in her 1747 “The Art of Cookery”, which is essentially the same recipe, except these puddings are served with a butter/wine sauce, whereas E.S.’s included sack in the mixture itself.

Recipe for An Oxford Pudding from Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery” (1747) p102

Both recipes consist of dry crumbs, suet, currants, sugar, nutmeg, with eggs to bind the mixture together, which is then shaped and fried in butter. Interestingly, the Glasse recipe is entitled “An Oxford Pudding” (singular) when it is very clearly made up of a number of small puddings, suggesting that this should more accurately be called “A pudding from Oxford”, thus tying in with the original E.S. recipe.

In the 21st century, an earlier recipe of impeccable provenance has emerged as a number of handwritten manuscripts have come to light. Radolphus (Ralph) Ayres was head cook at New College, Oxford in the early eighteenth century (approx. 1714-1725) and kept a manuscript of the many recipes he used. There are at least four known copies of this manuscript collection, which includes New College Puddings. His serving suggestion is to present them surrounding a wobbly, creamy Quaking Pudding.

Recipe for New College Puddings, Ralph Ayres Manuscript dated 1722. Images: Bellmans Auctioneers.

In addition, the manuscripts at the Wellcome Collection contain over 50 New College Pudding recipes, and when you add in recipes printed in books as well, there’s close to 100 recipes to choose from. For over three centuries this recipe was included in all the popular cookery books of the age, but their popularity waned in the 20th century, as more exotic sweet options became available.

This is a shame, since they are a wonderful example of making something delicious and satisfying  from almost nothing. Stale breadcrumbs, suet and dried fruit, a bit of sugar, an egg or two and suddenly it’s a hearty, warm and comforting winter treat. Minor details have changed over time – little additions to improve the taste or changes in cooking methods. With the cold winter days fast approaching, and high food prices forcing our hand with affordable food choices – whatever your situation, there is a New College Pudding recipe for you!

New College Puddings have all the warmth, comfort and flavour of a steamed pudding, but without the hours and hours of boiling/steaming. Using breadcrumbs instead of flour means that the cooking time can be drastically reduced and the only ingredient that actually needs any cooking is the egg. The mixture can be fried, baked and/or steamed and no cooking method requires more than 30 minutes. The texture and flavour is a cross between a steamed pudding and Christmas cake, and if that sounds like something you’d enjoy, you’re not going to be disappointed.

I’ve selected four subtly-different recipes for you to try, ranging from the earliest recipe I could find, to the most elaborate. Whichever one you choose – and I do hope you’ll choose at least one – you’re in for a tasty and comforting treat.

A College Pudding – 17thC

17thC College Puddings, from MS8097, Wellcome Collection

This is the earliest recipe I could find, definitely pre-1700, and its also one of the simplest. This quantity makes just 6 puddings – ideal for trying out to see if you like the style. There is no seasoning spice in this recipe, and, for me, it is noticeable by its absence. You might want to add 1tsp mixed spice just to get into the the steamed pudding mood.

17thC College Puddings from MS8097, Wellcome Collection

85g stale breadcrumbs
60g currants
50g dried suet (Atora brand in the UK, vegetarian or beef)
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice (optional)
2-3 tbs packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large yolk
2tbs milk

milk to mix
butter for frying
caster sugar for sprinkling

  • Put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir together.
  • Whisk the egg and yolk together, and add 2tbs milk.
  • Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Add more milk if required. The mixture needs to be moist enough to hold together if pressed, but still hold its shape.
  • Rest for 15 minutes, to allow the liquid to be absorbed. If it’s still a little dry, add milk 1tbs at a time, until suitably moistened.
  • Shape your puddings. I used my silicone mould of cylinders, but I appreciate that not everyone has as much kitchen stuff as I do, so an alternative method would be to
    • divide the mixture into six.
    • Form each roughly into a sausage shape.
    • Wrap/roll each portion in plastic wrap.
    • Twist the ends tightly, shaping the mix into a smooth cylinder.
  • Chill the shaped mixture for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
  • When ready to cook, remove the chilled puddings from their moulds.
  • Melt a generous lump of butter (about 50g) in a non-stick pan. Several of the recipes I’ve read advocate for huge quantities of fat – up to and including a pound of butter (but also suet, dripping and lard) – and for the pan to be constantly shaken to ensure the puddings don’t stick. Non-stick pans are our modern convenience for this.
  • Fry the puddings over medium-low heat (5 on an induction hob) until browned on all sides.
  • Remove the browned puddings from the pan and drain on paper towels.
  • Sprinkle a little caster sugar over the puddings and serve hot.

New College Puddings – c1798

New College Puddings recipe c1798, from MS960, Wellcome Collection

These puddings might be considered the next level in that there is a move to the overwhelmingly most popular/traditional shape, that of an egg. Other recipes I have read specify a turkey egg in size, which is roughly as broad as the palm of your hand, so a little more substantial in size. We also have the addition of spice in the form of nutmeg, and either some rosewater or sack to moisten the mix.

Finally, the dish is complemented with a wine and butter sauce. I chose to thicken the sauce with arrowroot, to give it a bit of body. You could substitute cornflour, but arrowroot is great for sauces as it thickens and clears, and also retains liquidity when cold, so the sauce pours well both hot and cold (in contrast to cornflour, which thickens a sauce when hot, but tends to set solid when cold). Arrowroot also thickens at a much lower temperature, well below boiling, and will actually lose its thickening qualities if it does boil, so you need to keep an eye on it.

For the puddings
75g dry breadcrumbs
60g dried suet
75g currants
½ tsp salt
30g soft dark brown sugar
1tsp ground nutmeg
1 large egg
1tbs rosewater or sherry/mead/ginger wine/Madeira/any favourite fortified wine
2-3tbs single cream,

Sauce:
60g unsalted butter
2-3 tbs packed soft dark brown sugar
120ml sherry/mead/ginger wine/Madeira/any favourite fortified wine
2tsp arrowroot
1tbs water

water to dilute (optional)

  • Put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir together.
  • Whisk the egg, alcohol and milk together.
  • Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Add more milk if required. The mixture needs to be moist enough to hold together if pressed, but still hold its shape.
  • Rest for 15 minutes, to allow the liquid to be absorbed. If it’s still a little dry, add milk 1tbs at a time, until suitably moistened.
  • Shape your puddings.
    • Divide the mixture into 4 and place each portion onto some plastic wrap.
    • Wrap the plastic around the mixture and press together into an oval shape.
    • Set aside in the fridge until required
  • Make your sauce:
    • Melt the butter in a pan.
    • Add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
    • Mix the arrowroot with the water until smooth, then add the wine.
    • Pour the liquids into the sugar/butter mix.
    • Stir together over medium heat until the sauce loses it’s milkiness and thickens.
    • Taste your sauce and add water if liked. Since the sauce thickens below boiling point, a lot of the alcohol from the booze will still be present, so water it down if it’s all a bit much.
    • Set aside until required.
  • Fry your puddings:
    • Melt 50g butter in a non-stick pan.
    • Remove the plastic wrap from your puddings and place them in the pan.
    • Fry gently on medium-low heat (5 on an induction hob) until browned on both sides and hot in the middle.
    • Place puddings on/in a serving dish and sprinkle with caster sugar.
  • Reheat your sauce and pour over the puddings, or pour into a dish/jug and serve alongside.

Baked New College Puddings – 1840s

Baked New College Puddings, 1840s, MS4066 Wellcome Collection

These puddings are pretty similar to the above recipe, but have been adapted to being baked in the oven in buttered teacups. Nowadays we have a plethora of baking tins and moulds to choose from, so these are easily the most ‘hands-off’ puddings of the four.

Baked New College Puddings, 1840s, MS4066 Wellcome Collection

New College Puddings
120g breadcrumbs
60g currants,
30g raisins,
30g flaked almonds,
60g dried suet
30g candied orange or lemon peel, chopped fine
3-4tbs packed soft dark brown sugar
100ml double cream
2 tbs brandy
2 large eggs

4 individual pudding tins/large ramekins
butter for buttering the moulds
caster sugar for sprinkling

  • Butter your moulds generously and set aside.
  • Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
  • Whisk the eggs, cream and brandy together and stir through the rest of the ingredients. Don’t worry about having the mixture wet enough to stick together – the shape of the moulds will do all the work. It is enough just to have the crumb moist.
  • Divide the mixture into four and spoon into your pudding moulds/ramekins. Avoid pressing the mixture down, as it will make the resulting pudding dense and heavy. Cover each mould with foil, to retain moisture while baking.
  • Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan.
  • Arrange the moulds on a baking tin and bake for 30 minutes, turning the tin around halfway through, to ensure even baking.
  • Remove the puddings and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto plates/serving dish.
  • Sprinkle with caster sugar and serve.

Boiled and Fried Georgian New College Puddings – 1820s

Georgian New College Puddings, 18820s, MS1839, Wellcome Collection

There’s nothing very surprising with these puddings as regards ingredients, other than perhaps all the extra flavourings, but I was taken with both the quantities – the original recipe was for 16 small puddings – and the suggested improved cooking method of half boiling (steaming) followed by frying. These puddings are served with a butter-wine sauce, exactly the same as the sauce above, but this time made with white sugar.

Georgian New College Puddings, 1820s, MS1839, Wellcome Collection

It was very straightforward to scale down this recipe and make just four puddings, but they turned out to be, relative to the other New College Puddings – enormous. The same egg shape mentioned in other recipes, just much larger. I’ve deliberately used the same flatware in each of the photos to give some idea of scale, so you can see that I was unable to get even three on the serving plate without stacking them. Having made these, I think the reason for suggesting boiling (steaming) first, before frying, is two-fold: to heat the puddings through and also to help the puddings hold together better. Steaming cooks the egg, which holds the fruit and breadcrumbs together, and frying gives the outside a delicious crisp and buttery finish. I steamed the puddings in plastic wrap before removing it and frying.

Georgian New College Puddings

You don’t HAVE to make four puddings – use the mixture to make smaller ones (either 6 or 8), depending on what you are serving beforehand, as well as your guests’ appetites.

For the puddings
115g currants
115g currants
225g breadcrumbs
100g soft dark brown sugar
1½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 large egg
2tbs sherry/Madeira/Marsala or other fortified wine
60ml single cream, plus more to moisten

100g butter to fry
caster sugar for sprinkling

Sauce
60g unsalted butter
2-3 tbs white caster/granulated sugar
120ml sherry/mead/ginger wine/Madeira/any favourite fortified wine
2tsp arrowroot
1tbs water

water to dilute (optional)

  • Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
  • Whisk the egg, wine and cream together and stir through the rest of the ingredients.
  • Divide the mixture into four and spoon onto squares of plastic wrap.
  • Twist the plastic wrap around the filling and shape into an oval.
  • Place the shaped puddings into a steamer pan, with the plastic wrap ‘seal’ underneath. Cover the pan with a lid.
  • Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and place the covered steamer pan on top. Steam for 20 minutes.
  • While your puddings are steaming, make the sauce.
    • Melt the butter in a pan.
    • Add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
    • Mix the arrowroot with the water until smooth, then add the wine.
    • Pour the liquids into the sugar/butter mix.
    • Stir together over medium heat until the sauce loses it’s milky appearance and thickens.
    • Taste your sauce and add water if liked. Since the sauce thickens below boiling point, a lot of the alcohol will be retained, so water it down if it’s all a bit much. Set aside until required
  • Remove the steamer pan from over the hot water and set aside for 5 minutes to cool a little.
  • In a large frying pan, melt the butter.
  • Unwrap each pudding and place into the pan. Fry a golden brown on each side.
  • Remove the puddings from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.
  • Reheat the sauce and pour into a mall serving jug.
  • Transfer the puddings to your serving dish and sprinkle with caster sugar.
  • Serve the puddings with the sauce alongside.

Apploffi Pie

Pudding, 20th century, 21st Century

Recipe inspiration can come from many quarters. The prompt for today’s recipe comes in the form of four words in a newspaper article over 20 years ago.

Back in March 2006, The Guardian published a piece by Ian Dowding entitled “I Invented Banoffi Pie”. Dowding then spends the rest of the article chronicling how he did NOT invent the classic pudding loved by millions, rather how it evolved from an original pie – Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie – from the famous Blum’s Bakery and Restaurant in San Francisco in the 1940s.

The owner of the restaurant where Dowding was employed felt that the dessert needed a little something extra, so experiments were conducted introducing various ingredients, including fruit.

“Apple was quite good”  is the phrase that set me experimenting. There was no recipe included, although I have found examples by other people out there which involve a simple substitution of apple for banana, but I felt the dish deserved something more to set it apart.

There were a number of points to ponder:

  • The base.
  • The caramel.
  • The fruit.
  • The cream topping.

The Base

The original Banoffi Pie recipe called for shortcrust pastry, whose plainness was just the foil needed against the richness of the filling. Could this be improved upon in some way? I’m a real fan of the original shortcrust pastry, especially my version using cornflour for a proportion of the flour, as it makes it fabulously crisp and dry, and it is a great foil against the very rich sweetness of the caramel and banana. But using apple is a whole different kettle of fish. Banana is a really strong flavour, and  while apples are characterised as being crisp and juicy they’re not really  strongly flavoured. So I started thinking about a different kind of base that might contribute to the mix a little more than plain pastry. Since salted caramel is very much a thing in recent times, leaning into the savoury seemed a promising direction. I was reminded of the saltine crust of the Atlantic Beach Pie that was all the rage back in 2014, decided to mix in some pretzels for extra crunch, and then make the whole crust gluten-free, because why not? The Italian company Schar produces a wide range of gluten-free products, many of which are available on UK supermarket shelves. I chose their Salti crackers, which are like a cross between a Ritz cracker and a Saltine, and their pretzels. Obviously, regular crackers/pretzels are fine too.

With the addition of a little salt, this was still pretty much a regular crumb crust, except I had a brainwave and opted to use browned butter. It turned a fairly straightforward crumb crust into a buttery, crunchy, salty, rubble-y, nutty delight that is just incredible against the caramel/apple/cream, and positively addictive on it’s own. Very autumnal and just the perfect pairing with all the other elements. I’m slightly obsessed with how good it is and am now thinking of all the other dishes I can use it with.

The Caramel

Classic. Not to be messed with. No notes.

That being said, you can choose whether to buy tins of caramel, or make your own, which is cheaper and less sweet than the tins of caramel. To make your own, put unopened tins of sweetened condensed milk into a slow cooker and add water to cover. Cook on Low for 8-10 hours. Switch off the slow cooker and leave to cool overnight. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES open a tin while it is hot. Buy your unbranded condensed milk from Aldi – other supermarkets seem to be carrying the (much more expensive) named brand only these days.

The Apple

Which apple to choose? There are so many, dessert and cooking types. Jazz apples are my current favourite dessert apple with a crisp, clean and juicy bite. Rough-skinned russet apples have an almost nutty flavour, and go great with a variety of cheeses. My number one pick of fresh apples, however, is Bramley apples – a British cooking apple that is pleasantly sharp and breaks down into billowy apple fluff when cooked. You could slice and use it raw, but the juice might become a problem if left for a while, not to mention the discolouration, so cooked apple is probably the best way to go here. If you prefer a dessert apple, consider using a little lemon juice to sharpen it. To help prevent the juice from weeping out of your cooked apple, you can thicken your pulp with a little cornflour.

Other Apple Options

I thought of this after finishing up all the taste testing and using up all my apples, but you could also use gelatine to set your pulp. Bloom it in water, either sheet or powder, and then add to your hot apple pulp and stir well until it melts and is well combined. Pour over your caramel.

A third option would be to use Apple Butter, a favourite autumn preserve made mainly in the United States, which is already seasoned and spiced, and solid when cold. The apple flavour is much more rich and concentrated and is definitely something I would have chosen, had we not already scoffed all of the last batch I made.

The Cream

The unsweetened cream flavoured strongly with coffee was the original, classic recommendation. I was puzzled after reading the above article – and wasn’t sure if it was it supposed to go with the apple version as well. I had my doubts, so I decided to taste-test a number of flavouring options for the cream as follows:

    • Coffee, (unsweetened) – Not a fan. I was going to go as far as ‘revolting’ but that seemed a bit harsh. For my palate, the bitterness just jars against the sharpness and freshness of the apple.
    • Lemon (sweetened juice) – Had potential, as it goes well with apple, but it did not tie in with the caramel at all.
    • Vanilla (unsweetened) – Pleasantly surprising. Having it unsweetened made it  a little unusual, but it was great with both the apple and the caramel, and the sweetness of both more than made up for it.
    • Unflavoured – I don’t know whether it was because all my flavouring thoughts had turned out to be less than a roaring success, but I decided to try just plain whipped cream – no flavourings, no sugar. And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. It was great with the apple, great with the caramel, and great with the brown butter base. Sometimes the simplest idea is the best.

So there we have it. A cracking autumnal variation on a classic crowd-pleaser whipped up from just a 4-word prompt!

Apploffi Pie

If you already have a favourite Banoffi Pie recipe, you can just swap out the banana for the cooked apple. However, I strongly recommend trying the brown butter cracker crust – it’s a taste sensation!

Use whatever tin/dish you prefer. I used a rectangular, loose-bottomed fluted tart tin. As in the picture, you want to aim for roughly the same depth for each of the layers – crumb/caramel/apple/cream – Mine is about 1.5cm.

Browned Butter Pretzel/cracker base

250g unsalted butter – divided
60g GF pretzels
90g GF Salti crackers
2tbs soft dark brown/muscovado sugar
½ tsp salt

  • Put the block of butter into a pan over a medium (level 5 on my induction hob) heat. You’re not going to use all of the browned butter, but it’s difficult to calculate how much fresh butter will make just the right amount of browned butter, because the water content of the butter isn’t set in stone. Much simpler to make a whole block into browned butter, use what you need and then you have delicious browned butter to use on other things.
  • Allow the butter to melt, and continue to heat, stirring occasionally. The milk solids will eventually start to turn brown and will release an amazing, nutty caramel aroma. This will take about 10-15 minutes. It will happen quicker if you raise the heat, but this will also speed up the browning, making the line between toasty brown and burnt very sudden.
  • Stir more frequently as the solids brown, and remove from the heat once they are sufficiently toasty.
  • Set aside to cool.
  • Prepare the tin you are going to use. I like to line the tin with foil to help remove the pie once set and ready to serve.
  • Put the pretzels, crackers, sugar and salt into a food processor and blitz to crumbs. NB if you’re using salted butter, reduce the salt to ¼ teaspoon.
  • Tip the crumb mixture into a bowl.
  • Stir your browned butter and measure out 75g. Save the rest to use on popcorn or to make more crumb mixture! NB Keep giving your butter a stir as it cools, so the delicious browned bits are mixed throughout – otherwise they will just all sink to the bottom.
  • If your butter has started to solidify, warm it with a brief zap in the microwave.
  • Stir the butter into the crumb mixture until well mixed. It should clump together if you press it firmly.  Press the crumb into the bottom and sides of your tin. Use a flat-bottomed glass to get a smooth, compact finish on the bottom. Fingertips are probably best for the sides.
  • Heat your oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
  • Bake your crumb shell for 10 minutes, then set aside to cool. The baking will help solidify and firm up your tart shell.
  • Chill in the fridge until needed.

Caramel

1 tin sweetened condensed milk OR 1 tin caramel.

If you are catering for large number, you might want to use 2 tins, but in all honesty, the dish is so rich, one tin is enough for 8 servings.

  • As I’ve already mentioned, making your own caramel from sweetened condensed milk is both cheaper and better than buying it pre-made – the finished caramel is firmer and not as sweet. You do whatever suits your situation.
  • To recap making your own: put unopened tins (do several at once and keep the spares in the cupboard for EBS (Emergency Banoffi Situations)) of sweetened condensed milk into a slow cooker and add water to cover. Cook on Low for 8-10 hours. Switch off the slow cooker and leave the tins to cool overnight. And, just to belabour a safety point UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES open a tin while it is hot.
  • Warm your caramel gently in a pan so that it is easier to pour. As it warms, stir to remove lumps. If you are using your home-made caramel, which has a firm set, you might want to use an immersion blender or hand mixer to get rid of any lumps. Tins of ready-made caramel have a softer consistency.
  • Pour your smooth, warmed caramel over your chilled crumb shell. Spread it evenly and smooth over.
  • Cover with plastic wrap so that it touches the surface of the caramel and chill until required.

Apple Layer

300g OR 1 rounded cup of fresh apple pulp (made from 3 Bramley apples OR 5-6 dessert apples) OR apple butter

OPTIONAL: the juice and/or zest of one lemon to sharpen the pulp

EITHER 1tbs cornflour mixed with 1tbs water OR 2 tsp powdered gelatine OR 2 sheets gelatine

  • Put your apple pulp into a pan and heat through.
  • Taste your pulp and add the lemon zest/juice if liked.
  • If using cornflour…
    • Mix the cornflour with the water until smooth.
    • Stir the cornflour slurry into your warm apple pulp and cook for 1-2 minutes until the pulp thickens and no white from the slurry remains.
  • If using gelatine…
    • Bloom your gelatine in water according to instructions.
    • Add the bloomed gelatine to your heated apple pulp and stir thoroughly to combine.
  • If using apple butter, just warm it enough to make it pourable.
  • Pour your thickened apple over the caramel layer and spread smooth.
  • Cover your apple layer with plastic wrap and chill thoroughly in the fridge until set.

Cream Layer to finish

300ml chilled double/heavy cream
ground cinnamon to sprinkle

  • Whip the cream until it holds its shape.
  • Spread the whipped cream over the apple layer of your pie and swirl it artistically. Alternatively, just spread it like I did.
  • Sprinkle the top of your Apploffi Pie with ground cinnamon and serve.

 

Floating Islands

17th century, 18th century, Pudding

Confession Time: When it comes to recipe history, I’m afraid I’m bit of a “Well, actually…” person.

I’ll read some guff online about a recipe ‘backstory’, or some offhand comment not being sufficiently respectful of a British recipe, or even another country’s claim to something that originated in the UK and I really have to exercise great self control in order to refrain from leaving a comment beginning “Well, actually…”.

Then again, sometimes I just can’t help myself, and I’ll make a blog post, and so here we are at the dessert topic of Floating Islands.

The initial thing I take issue with, is Wikipedia’s assertion that “The earliest known English-language reference to a floating island is in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747)”. As will be shown below, the recipe is much older than that. What they probably meant was ‘first published in English’, because I have found a slew of manuscript recipes (OK, so it’s six. Is six a slew?) predating this claim, some stretching back well into the seventeenth century. Now you might quibble that manuscript recipes are not the same thing at all, and therefore don’t count, but these manuscripts have been dated, verified, digitised and made freely available online for over a decade, so *snaps fingers impatiently* get with it, Wikipedia.

The most delightful aspect of these early recipes is that they are much easier to make than the custard/poached meringue/caramel version of modern times.  For such a simple dessert, there’s a lot of stress involved in making a lump-free custard, making shaping and poaching meringues so that they look  neat and don’t collapse, making a caramel that doesn’t taste burnt, not to mention all the time it takes do do all of the above. Contrast this with, no exaggeration, if you have the ingredients to hand, you can serve up your dessert in 12 minutes – and that’s including 10 minutes of your kitchen gadget machine doing the whisking.

Floating Island recipe attributed to Lady Anne Cholmley (1637-1705), in MS3341, Wellcome Collection.

The earliest Floating Island recipe I have found dates from 1675, and is attributed to Lady Anne Cholmley (1637-1705). Lady Anne married Sir Hugh Cholmeley, 4th Baronet (1632 – 1688) in 1665, so this recipe attributed to her married name, appearing in a manuscript dated to 1675, fits the dating very well, and the “My Lady” honorific suggests the author was personally acquainted with Lady Anne herself.

As already mentioned, this recipe is very quick and easy to prepare: fresh currant juice, sugar, egg-white and a little gum dragon (gum tragacanth), whisked together and served floating on a dish of fresh cream. It is very similar to the Dairy-Free Cream already published on this blog. I particularly like the later annotation that “This way you can make of any other fruit a cream” at the bottom. Gum tragacanth is still used in recipes today, giving durability in decorative sugarwork. However, in this recipe, it is employed to give structure (due to the liquidity of the juice). I had some in the cupboard (because of course I did) and tried using it in the recipe, but compared to the other methods, it didn’t appear to have a significant effect. Plus you have the extra Faffâ„¢ of having to soak it overnight to make a paste before proceeding.

Mrs Tyndale’s Floating Island of codlings, circa 1690-1750, Ms V.a.680, Folger Shakespeare Library

Mrs Tyndale’s Floating Island recipe is dated a little later ( circa 1690-1750), and uses apple pulp of codlings (cooking apples) instead of the fruit juice.

Floating Island, from an anonymous manuscript, dated 1700, MS1811, Wellcome Collection.

This version, from a manuscript dated 1700, offers yet a third variation of Floating Islands: Raspberry and apple jelly is stirred into egg-white and left overnight. The following day it is whisked over hot water until thickened, and then served in spoonfuls on a dish of raw cream. This is how Dairy-Free Cream is made, and using fruit juice already sweetened and set into a jelly, rather than straight fruit juice, gives the resultant foam a much longer ‘shelf life’. As can be seen on the Dairy-Free Cream post, I left the whipped foam on the counter top – for SCIENCE! – and it holds it shape, albeit slightly deflated, for over five hours. Great if you need to prepare your dessert in advance.

Floating Island recipe from 1720, MS Wb.100, Folger Shakespeare Library

This recipe returns to the apple pulp version, albeit with a much smaller proportion of pulp. There’s proportionally rather a lot of sugar, but the addition of the lemon juice can balance that out. This version is leaning towards another classic British dessert, Apple Snow, an ethereal confection with which to treat any guests who have a sensitivity to dairy produce.

Molehill Cream or Floating Island recipe from the manuscript book of Mrs Frances Rawson, 1734, MS7747, Wellcome Collection

This particular recipe highlights one of the difficulties of old recipes – the names. Luckily, in this instance, the author has given us two names, one of which is Floating Island, but imagine if they had not? And this isn’t an isolated incident. The same recipe can be known by many different names all over the country. Conversely, the one name can refer to sometimes drastically differing dishes depending on location. In addition to all of the recipes listed here, other fruit/sugar/egg-white mixtures I’ve read have had the titles Irish Cream, Currant Cream, Spanish Butter, Blossom Cream and the very impressive The Rock For A Dessert (below). There are no  doubt many more variations out there, for what is essentially the same recipe.

The Rock for a Dessert recipe, a version of Floating Island using apple pulp, 1760, MS1813, Wellcome Collection

And finally, the last of the slew of pre-1747 Floating Island recipes, dating from 1741, is another apple-pulp-based version.

Floating Island recipe, 1741, Ms499, University of Leeds Library, Special Collections

It’s interesting to note that the ingredients have, in general, moved from currant juices and jellies in the 17th centuries, to fruit-pulp-based versions in the 18th centuries.

Choose Your Own Floating Island Adventure!

The best version of this fruity cloud delight is the one for which you have the ingredients to hand, so I thought I’d offer a few suggestions and then you can make an informed choice.

  • Egg-whites : You can use fresh, by all means – most people have eggs on hand, and all you need is a single large egg-white to make enough billowy clouds of fruit meringue to serve up to 8 people. The downside of this is that the lack of cooking might not be something everyone enjoys, plus you now have a solitary egg-yolk to keep/use. The solution is, of course, to use pasteurised eggwhites in a carton. Everyone’s happy and no pesky yolk to clutter up the fridge.
  • Sugar : White, granulated or caster sugar is my recommendation. It adds sweetness but without impacting the delicate pastel colour of the whipped mixture. Some of the above recipes add sugar to the cream, but I feel this is unnecessary, and the cool richness of, say, double cream is a great counterpoint to the ethereal nature of the whipped meringue.
  • Fruit juice vs fruit pulp : Both are delicious. The deciding factor to consider should be, how long until I serve it? If you are serving it immediately, then fruit juice is fine. When whipping up (no pun intended) the versions for the photos, I thought I’d make them all first, then photograph. But by the time I was on the third batch (so 15-20 minutes after finishing the first batch), the first batch was already collapsing. The fruit pulp gave the finished meringue more body, and a slightly longer standing ability.
  • Fruit jelly : If you need to have some time between making your dessert and serving it, using a fruit jelly is optimal – the juice has already been sweetened and set, and is therefore much better at holding it’s shape when whisked. You can also warm and then sieve jam.
  • Which fruit? : Honestly? Almost any. The main guideline here is that it should be tart/sharp. As can be seen in many of the recipe above, using lemon juice can add the necessary acidity if needed. Gooseberries, rhubarb, apricots (jam), and for jellies – all colours of currants, raspberries, quince, cooking apple, cranberry, pomegranate. Even though the meringue is sweetened with sugar, you still want to be able to taste a hint of sharpness.

Floating Islands

This recipe is a general guide, in that you can substitute whatever fruit/jam/jelly/juice you have. It makes a large volume, but it disappears in a puff, so you can serve giant portions to four, or more elegant servings to eight. Another idea I had that might appeal, would be a ‘flight’ of islands, each one flavoured differently, all floating on a sea of cream. Garnish with fresh fruit and berries if liked, but I must say, I prefer the simplicity of just fruit cloud and cream.

1 large/40ml egg white
100g/ml sharp fruit puree/juice/jelly/sieved jam
50g white sugar (omit if using jelly/jam)
Juice of half a lemon (optional)

To serve
Double cream
sugar (optional)
Fruit garnish (optional)

  • Put all of the ingredients, except the cream, into a bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk for 10 minutes.
  • Sweeten the cream if liked.
  • Portion out the meringue onto your serving dishes and pour round the cream. Some of the recipes above say to pour the cream first, but having tried that myself, it makes it very difficult to then place the meringue neatly. Much better to add the meringue to the dry plate and then pour round the cream.
  • Garnish with fruit if liked.

 

Close-up images from the top picture.

    • With white currant juice.
    • Black currant juice.
    • Cranberry jelly. Yeah, don’t do this. I only tried it because I picked up cranberry jelly at the supermarket by mistake instead of redcurrant jelly (they were next to one another on the shelf). The colour was deep, but the flavour was just not there. Probably something to do with the gelling agents used in manufacture. Home-made cranberry jelly might be worth trying.
    • Bramley Apple pulp.

Apple Cream

18th century, Pudding

Recently, I was browsing my collection of manuscript recipes, looking for something suitable for the upcoming Mothers Day, also known as Mothering Sunday.

I have already posted about the original Simnel Cake, which has more recently morphed into a marzipan-layered fruit cake. But to be honest, my reaction to thoughts of doing anything with marzipan is, pretty much as it has always been:

Blanche from The Golden Girls sighing heavily.

I know it’s very much a part of traditional baked goods in the UK, but exposure to the neon-yellow, heavily almond-flavoured monstrosity of my youth has left its scars. Some day I shall get around to rehabilitating my taste-buds, but for now, to paraphrase the words of Syrio Forel: What do we say to things with marzipan? Not today.

So I decided to go another way and make something that many manuscript authors decide is important enough to be recorded in their book: a recipe from their own mother. The recipes they wish to preserve are many and varied, ranging from jams and marmalades, custards, pastry, cheesecakes and puddings, to spiced meats, possets, biscuits, cakes and more.

Handwritten recipe for Apple Cream, from a manuscript dated circa 1725, MS1343, at the Wellcome Collection
Apple Cream, circa 1725, MS1343, Wellcome Collection

This recipe from Deborah Branch’s manuscript, dates from 1725, the early years of the Hanoverian Era. It is a simple recipe, with arguably just three ingredients, and it suggests to me that it is a treasured childhood memory: Cooked apples, bread, custard. It is served cold, and can be assembled just before serving, if more suited to your circumstances. The textures play a large part in the enjoyment of this recipe: the firm, coldness of the cooked apple, the lightness of the cream and the crunch of the toasted bread are very ‘toothsome’, as they used to say. The recipe suggests assembling and then chilling, however this will impact the crispness of the toasted bread, so I would recommend making and chilling everything, then assembling when required.

A word or two about the ingredients.

  • Apples: I’ve tried this recipe with both Bramley cooking apples and (Cox’s) eating apples. Both are good in different ways. The Bramleys are much bigger (so fewer are needed) and are less prone to holding their shape. Time the cooking just right and they have a fantastic texture, soft on the outside and firm yet still cooked in the centre, but even if they tip over into fluff, their flavour is still wonderful, especially if you’ve used either light or dark brown sugar. Eating apples hold their shape much better and are a great contrast against the crisp bread and creamy custard. Personally, I prefer to use Bramley apples – their sharpness is a great contrast against the sweetness of the toasted buns and cream.
  • Bread: the original recipe just calls for ‘slices of bread’ to act as a base, but this didn’t seem to offer much, especially not in texture. I recently read a recipe for a trifle that had the bread toasted, and I thought that sounded much more exciting (yes, dearest gentle reader, I really did just admit to toast sounding exciting. Hey, I live in the wilds of the countryside, we gotta take our entertainment where we can!). You can tinker with this recipe merely by changing the bread you choose – airy sourdough,  an enriched brioche, even dark rye bread or malt loaf. I chose to go with spiced hot cross buns, as a nod to the Easter season in general, and I can highly recommend this option.
  • Cream/Custard: despite the title, the cream proved to be a rich custard made with egg yolks and cream. I’m always pondering the type of cream they mean in old recipes, because here in the 21st century we’re rather spoiled for choice. But you can use the same tweaks here as for the bread option: I used single/pouring cream, but you could enrich it by switching to whipping, double, extra thick or even clotted for a real indulgence. The ‘set’ wasn’t very firm – and I liked that – but if you prefer a set to your custard cream, just add a rounded teaspoon of cornflour (mixed to a slurry with milk) to the eggs and sugar.

Apple Cream c.1725

This recipe can be customised to both your liking and your needs. I offer the following quantities as a guide to serving four people, but the quantities of each can be doubled for large appetites/extra portions.

Bramley Apples x 2 ( ½ an apple per person)
OR
Eating/Dessert Apples x 4 (1 apple per person)
4 tbs sugar – caster, light or dark brown

2 x Hot Cross Buns

300ml single cream
3 large egg yolks
1-2 tbs caster sugar – or more to your taste
flavouring – 1tsp rosewater/orange flower water/vanilla/lemon zest – or other
1 rounded tsp cornflour & milk to mix (optional)

  • Cook the apples: Peel the apples and cut into halves. Remove the cores. Sprinkle over sugar to your taste. About 1tbs per half-apple.
  • Add the apple halves to a pan with a lid (preferably a glass one so you can easily keep an eye on the apples as they cook.
  • Sprinkle 1tsp water per apple into the pan, just to keep the sugar from scorching until the juices start to run.
  • Cover the pan and turn the heat to low (4 on my hob).
  • Allow the apples to poach gently until just cooked through – for Bramley Apples about 15 minutes, eating apples will be closer to 20 minutes.
  • Switch off the heat and allow the apples to cool in the pan. When cold, transfer them and any juice to a dish and chill in the fridge until required.
  • Toast the bread. Tear your buns/bread into small pieces and spread out on a baking sheet.
  • Toast the bread under the grill until crisped and turning brown at the edges.
  • Cool on the baking sheet and when cold, transfer to a ziplock bag or airtight container until needed.
  • Prepare the cream. Pour the cream into a small saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer – when the edges are just bubbling.
  • While the cream is heating, whisk the yolks with the sugar. If you’re using cornflour, add the slurry now.
  • Pour the scalded cream onto the yolks, whisking, then return the mixture to the pan.
  • Whisk the custard over medium heat until it has thickened. Take care it doesn’t boil, as it will turn the cream grainy.
  • Remove from the heat, stir through your flavouring and set aside. If not assembling immediately, cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin forming.

To Assemble

You can make this recipe in a large trifle bowl, but I think individual servings are much more attractive.

  • Cover the base of your dish with toasted bread/buns. If your bread has softened put it into the oven to crisp it up. Alternatively, prep and chill the cream and apples beforehand and toast the bread just before serving.
  • Arrange your cooked apples (or apple fluff if your Bramleys went a bit too far) over the toast. Drizzle any juices over as well.
  • Spoon your custard cream over the apples. I like to leave gaps here and there to allow the other ingredients to peep through.
  • Top with chopped/flaked nuts, sugar crystals, candied fruit or whipped cream as liked.

 

Summer Ice-creams

20th century, 21st Century, Pudding

The brief green gooseberry season is upon us and their delicate but sharp taste is a wonderfully aromatic taste of summer. Reddish dessert gooseberries ripen later in the season, but the sharpness of the green is my preference. They’re a thorny bush, so be prepared for having multiple jabs in your hands. I picked some at a local Pick Your Own fruit farm. Top Tip: most berries conceal themselves on the undersides of branches, so always lift them up for maximum harvesting efficiency. If your local fruit farm doesn’t have PYO gooseberries (and many don’t, sadly) they can also sometimes be found in the freezer of your local Farm Shop.

After laying down a batch of my bi-annual batch of gooseberry vinegar (a doddle to make, but a year in the fermenting/clearing), I decided to make a batch of gooseberry ice-cream. As the owner of a tiny kitchen (2m x 3m), I have neither the counter/cupboard space for an ice-cream maker, nor the patience to keep stirring a semi-frozen mixture in order to break up the ice-crystals, so the ‘set it and forget it’ no-churn recipe employing sweetened condensed milk is pretty much a no-brainer in this household.

The method is practically the same as that given for Damson Ice-Cream from a couple of years ago: Mix most of a fruit puree into the cream/milk mixture, then ripple through a ribbon of the remaining puree and set in the freezer.

The means of obtaining your gooseberry puree is a little different than usual, mainly due to their water content, which will wreak icy-crystal havoc with your ice-cream if it is too high. Rather than simmer with water until they break down, the gooseberries are coddled in a closed vessel over simmering water. The result will be a clear-ish liquid (which can be poured off) and the fruit pulp, which is then used for the ice-cream. This approach preserves not only the colour, but also the flavour, as prolonged cooking and/or high heat impairs both.

The second recipe is my re-creation of an ice-cream I had several years ago in Yorkshire. It’s actually not really a summer ice-cream, because citrus isn’t really in season in July, but oranges are in the shops and marmalade is on the shelves, and I am in love with it, so here we are.

The bitterness of Seville oranges, just as the tartness of gooseberries, is the perfect pairing with this ice-cream method, because the condensed milk is SO sweet, it needs something sharp to cut through all that sugar. Interestingly, in developing this version, I did learn that there is such a thing as too much bitterness. An early version contained both the zest and juice of Seville oranges (which I keep in my freezer as frozen cubes for year-round zestiness), and while I liked the end result, it really leaned heavily into bitterness, so I had to dial it back somewhat. This version uses the zest of regular oranges and no juice, with the slivers of peel from the marmalade providing delicious pops of intense Seville bitterness, tempered with sugar.

Both of these ice-creams will need to be removed from the freezer for 20-30 minutes before serving, in order to soften.

Gooseberry Ice-Cream

I have left the gooseberries without sugar, as there is more than enough sweetness with the condensed milk. Feel free to add some sugar if you feel they need it.

500g green gooseberries

1 x 397g tin of sweetened condensed milk
600ml double cream

  • Put the gooseberries in a lidded pan without any additional water and set it inside a larger pan. Add water until the larger pan is half filled. Heat over medium high heat until the water is simmering and coddle the gooseberries until soft. if you don’t have suitable pans to do this, you can put them into a casserole with a close-fitting lid and bake in the oven at 170°C, 150°C Fan. for 20-30 minutes.
  • Tip the coddled gooseberries into a sieve over a bowl and allow the clear liquid to drain through. Set the liquid aside.
  • Rub the gooseberry pulp through the sieve until all that remains are the seeds. Discard the seeds and set the pulp aside to cool.
  • Put the condensed milk and double cream into a bowl and whisk together until light and billowly.
  • Fold through 3/4 of the gooseberry pulp until well combined.
  • Spoon the ice-cream mixture into containers and then stir through the remaining puree in a ripple.
  • Cover and freeze at least overnight before serving.
  • Waste not, want not: You can add sugar to the clear gooseberry liquid and simmer it down to a syrup to pour over your ice-cream.
  • Bonus: Add a splash of elderflower cordial to taste to the puree, but beware of adding too much liquid.

Marmalade Cheesecake Ice-Cream

There is a slight difference in the method of this ice-cream, in order to get the cream cheese fully incorporated with the other ingredients. There’s no added sugar, as the condensed milk add more than enough. The amount of marmalade you’ll need will depend very much on the whatever marmalade you are using. I used a jar of my Dundee Marmalade, which is quite peel-heavy, so I only needed one jar.  Top Tip: An efficient way to get your marmalade shreds separated from your marmalade jelly, tip your jar(s) of marmalade into a pan and warm it gently until the jelly liquefies, then pour it through a sieve over a bowl. The jelly can then be poured back into the jar(s) for use later. Cut your shreds into smaller pieces if liked.

100g of orange shreds from your favourite marmalade – about half a cup.

zest of 3 oranges
330g cream cheese, Philadelphia for preference – at room temperature
1 x 397g tin of sweetened condensed milk
600ml double cream

  • Put the orange zest and cream cheese into a bowl and whisk until smooth.
  • Pour in the condensed milk and whisk again until smooth.
  • Add the double cream and whisk until light and billowy.
  • Stir through the marmalade shreds.
  • Spoon the ice-cream mixture into containers.
  • Cover and freeze at least overnight before serving.

Serving suggestion

To emulate a regular cheesecake, serve with some crisp/crunchy biscuits – Digestive biscuits/Graham crackers are a favourite. I used amaretti in the picture because that’s what I had, and regular readers will know we don’t make special trips to the supermarket for just one ingredient.

Dairy-Free Cream

17th century, 18th century, Pudding, Tracklements

Here is very useful recipe for those looking to avoid dairy products or even to just reduce the amount of fat in their diet. By whisking together some smooth jam and a couple of egg-whites, a deliciously light and frothy ‘cream’ can be created, for use as a finishing touch to trifles, puddings and pastries, or to enjoy by itself. The cream will be influenced by whatever flavour of jam you choose to use, but it doesn’t dominate at all. The above was made using seedless raspberry jam, and the subtlty of colour reflects the subtlty of flavour – a mere whisper on the palate. For an almost white ‘cream’ with a very faint flavour (if that suits your needs best), I can recommend making and using Christine Ferber’s Green Apple Jelly.

It is a surprisingly elegant solution for anyone with dietary restrictions, and dates from the cusp of the 17th and 18th centuries (circa 1700).

This particular recipe I found in a manuscript held by the Wellcome Collection in London, but I have also read variations in other manuscripts and locations. I am surprised tht it has fallen out of favour, for it is one of the simplest and easiest recipes I have adapted.

Well, I say adapted. In fact I have changed very little from the original instructions.

To Make Cream Without Milk, MS1804, dated circa 1700, Wellcome Collection.
To Make Cream Without Milk, MS1804, dated circa 1700, Wellcome Collection.

The one detail I did change was to reduce the number of egg-whites from three to two, reasoning that the eggs we have nowadays are much larger than those of three hundred years ago.

Thanks to modern technology, we are also spared the two hours of hand whisking (with a spoon of all things!) required in order to achieve the light and fluffy outcome pictured above, and can achieve the same result with about 10 minutes of whisking with your kitchen gadget of choice.

The potential worry regarding the consumption of raw egg whites is eliminated by the convenience of being able to purchase pasteurised egg whites in a carton.

The finished whip will hold its shape for several hours, should the need arise, allowing you to prepare this well in advance of your entertaining needs. I decided to leave the whipped ‘cream’ out, to test it’s durability, and can confirm that after 5 hours, it was still (mostly) holding its shape, as can be seen below.

Dairy Free Cream after five hours
Dairy Free Cream after five hours

Furthermore, this recipe is customisable in that you can vary the flavour of the whip by using different jams/jellies. For the smoothest result, they should be clear and set. Alternately, you could make your own by gently warming and sieving the jam to remove the fruit pieces in the conserve or jam flavour that you require. Apple, apricot, redcurrant, cranberry, blueberry, blackcurrant, plum, damson, marmalade…the possibilities are endless!

Dairy-Free Cream

You can easily halve the recipe at first, to make a trial batch to see if you like it. However, this might be too small an amount for a stand mixer to get to grips with, so use a hand-held whisk instead.

2 large egg whites (80ml)
225g seedless raspberry jam (or smooth jam/jelly of choice)

  • Put both ingredients into a bowl and whisk using a mixer, for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is thick and glossy and holds its shape.

Steak and Kidney Pudding

19th century, 20th century, 21st Century, Pastry, Pudding

I enjoyed reading this tweet a few weeks ago:

I feel it’s only fair to warn you: This is an “Okay, so..” post. Click here to skip to the recipe.

This post is in response to a request made over on Time To Cook Online, and I was happy to take a deep dive into this dish because of both its convenience and cheapness. This steak and kidney pudding can be made using a slow cooker and thus uses only a small amount of electricity. It also uses the cheaper cuts of beef (although it can be used with other fillings) as well as (by some) low-regarded and lowly offal. This notwithstanding, it makes for a fantastically satisfying meal that can be ready and waiting for you when you come home from work, with very little to do other than lift it out of the slow cooker and onto a plate. You can also make it ahead and reheat easily, again using the slow cooker.

This recipe goes back a long way, into the Georgian Era of the early nineteenth century, and is a development of the even older Beef Pudding. Contributors to the Wikipedia article on Steak and Kidney pudding rely on Jane Grigson’s assertion that Mrs Beeton was the first to include both steak and kidney in a suet pastry. However, there are at least two recipes in print that pre-date Beeton. One of the quirks of British recipes is that their names are rather fluid, and the same recipe can exist under numerous names. In short, you’re not going to get very far recipe hunting if you only look for ones that bear the same name as modern ones. Differences might be related to geography, or in this case, decades of time.

Anne Cobbett published the following recipe in her (undated, but generally believed to be) 1835-ish book The English Housekeeper.

From The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett, 1835-ish.

An even earlier recipe can be found in Alexander Murray’s The Domestic Oracle, also undated, but believed to be around 1826. where the star of the dish would appear to be the kidney, and the steaks almost an afterthought.

From The Domestic Oracle, Alexander Murray, 1826ish.

In the almost two centuries since then, as with any recipe, there have been various tweaks and adjustments made to the basic recipe. Additions that I’ve noted include oysters, oyster sauce, mushrooms, mushroom ketchup (the catsup of Anne Cobbet’s recipe), lemon pickle, mustard, beer, wine.. it really can be whatever you want to make it.

Which brings me to my next point: there are some things you should not skirt, if you want your steak and kidney pudding to taste delicious, and I’m going to take a bit of time to explain what you should do and why you should do it. If you follow these key points, you will have the knowledge to turn out a pretty darn near perfect steak and kidney pudding right from the get-go. In addition, much of it will be adaptable to other, suet pastry puddings, both sweet and savoury. If you’re already impatient to get to the recipe, you can skip ahead by clicking here.

  • Raw or Cooked Filling
    • The Old School way was to put the filling in raw. For the past 50 years or so, people have been following Jane Grigson’s advice to cook the filling first, to stop your pudding becoming soggy. This approach increases both the length of time it takes as well as the Faff Factorâ„¢ quite considerably: First you have to cook it, then you cook it again. Well, as will be demonstrated below, if you take a little care with your preparation, there’s no danger of your pudding becoming soggy, so sorry Jane Grigson, we’re going to cut out about two hours of fiddling around on the stove, and fill the pies raw.
  • The Suet Pastry: As with baked pastry crusts, people gradually realised that it didn’t need to be just an outer casing of food, it tasted pretty darn good too, infused with all the juices from the filling. These are some steps you can take to make sure your suet pastry is the crowning glory of your pudding.
    • Suet: Back in the Dayes of Yore, suet came fresh from the butcher and had to be soaked and then grated by hand. You can still find friendly butchers that will supply you with lumps of fresh suet if you ask, and it really is worth the effort in terms of the texture and flavour of the suet crust it produces. I understand not everyone has the time for such Faff,â„¢ and luckily we have the convenience of packs of suet on the supermarket shelves. The suet in these packs has an amazingly long shelf life, because it differs from fresh suet in that it is dried. Here’s the important point for this and any old recipe you might want to try: you need to use LESS dried suet than usual. Most old suet paste recipes are pretty much ‘half fat to flour’, which is fine if you’re using fresh suet, but when using dried, it can make the pastry heavy. So when using dried suet, you should aim to use about 10% less. For example, if a recipe called for 225g of flour, I would use 115g of fresh suet, or just 100g of dried.
    • Baking powder: The original suet pastry would have been rather heavy, but with the advent of baking powder, it can now puff up to a delightfully light texture. The general rule of thumb is 1 teaspoon of baking powder for every 115g flour.
    • Breadcrumbs: You can also lighten the pastry further by incorporating some fresh breadcrumbs into your suet pastry. Again, it is proportional to your flour, so 1 part breadcrumbs to 4 parts flour (divide the weight of your flour by 4 and that’s the weight of the breadcrumbs to use).
    • Seasoning: You don’t want your suet pastry to be a lump of nothingness, so season it! The very minimum should be salt and pepper. If you’re feeling bold, add in some chopped, fresh herbs, or a bit of mustard powder or horseradish – something to give it a bit of personality.
  • The Meat – Beef
    • For all its high-falutin’ title, the very best beef for this pudding is not going to be steak. At least, not STEAK steak. You should actually pick one of the less-prime cuts, ones that are full of flavour and do well with long, slow cooking. I recommend beef cheek, if you can find it (Morrisons supermarket in the UK has an excellent meat department and has always had it in stock whenever I’ve needed some). Also excellent is beef skirt (also carried by Morrisons). Although I haven’t tried it, beef shin is another cut that benefits from long, slow cooking. Finally you could try hangar and/or flat-iron steak, both of which have the marbling to make for a very succulent filling. Cut your meat into 1.5cm dice, so they can be packed tightly into your puddings and be perfectly cooked at serving time.
  • The Meat – Kidneys
    • I appreciate that offal is very divisive, but it tends to be cheap and it is packed with valuable vitamins and nutrients. Even within the offal world, kidneys are somewhat niche. And having researched numerous recipes to prepare for this post, I can understand why people might be kidney averse, or even be in the ‘tried it once, hated it’ camp. Because I was horrified to discover that the majority of recipes fail to prepare the kidneys properly. Everyone is very gung-ho with chopping them up and throwing them in, and I am APPALLED. There are two important stages to preparing kidneys:
      • Removing the core. The core is the hard, white ‘business part’ of kidneys and should be cut away completely. It’s not nice to chew and it never gets soft, even with extended cooking. Cut the trimmed meat into 1.5cm pieces.
      • Soaking the kidney. THIS IS IMPORTANT! The function of kidneys is to filter out the waste products from the blood and send them, and excess water to the bladder. If you don’t soak the kidney in acidulated water or similar (which will draw out the bad-tasting waste products), then they will still be full of all those waste products. That’s going to make the kidney, and everything it’s cooked with, rather ‘funky’ to say the least. Now some people might like that flavour, but for those that think they hate kidney, they probably ate a dish where the kidneys had not been soaked prior to cooking. To soak your kidney, put them in a bowl of cold water to cover, with a teaspoon of salt and the juice of half a lemon (or 2 tablespoons of vinegar) added. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and place it in the fridge for 2 hours, after which drain and discard the soaking liquid and pat the meat dry with kitchen paper.
  • Flouring The Meats
    • When cooking your pudding using a raw filling, you don’t want your pudding to become soggy during cooking, so it is advisable to toss your meats in seasoned flour beforehand, so the flour can act as a thickening agent for all the juices released during cooking. What is lacking in all the recipes I’ve read is the important point that THIS SHOULD BE CORNFLOUR. This is because cornflour doesn’t stick to itself, and consequently, unike regular flour, it doesn’t clump, so there’s only ever a very light covering on the meats and no lumps. In addition, cooked cornflour is transparent, which makes for a wonderfully clear gravy inside your pudding.
  • Gravy:
    • With your puddings properly sealed, the juices from the meats (and vegetables if using) will mingle together to keep it moist. But they will need a little help. You can choose to add water to your puddings, but the better choice is to use beef stock. I use a beef-flavoured stock cube (actually it’s a pot of jelly-like stuff) to make some double strength stock, and add in a splash or two of Worcester Sauce. You can also use beer or wine instead, which can be nice but also something of a hit-and miss in that you need to guesstimate how much to put in at the very start, instead of tasting and adjusting as you go.
    • You should also have some gravy ready to serve with the meal, either on the side or to pour directly into your puddings. Raw ingredients shrink during cooking, so there will always be a gap between filling and the top of the pudding, whatever the size.
  • Add-Ins
    • As mentioned above, there are lots of little tweaks you can do to both the pastry and the filling to jazz it up. Onions are mentioned by many of the old recipes, but are only recommended in very small quantities. They don’t break down during the cooking, which some might find noticeable pieces of onion off-putting. I recommend using onion powder/granules instead, which give the flavour without distracting from the richness of the meat filling. Carrots are another popular choice, but with a raw filling, you have to either dice them rather small, or add in already cooked carrots and run the risk of them turning to mush. Personally, I’m a bit of a purist, and believe the filling should be richly and unapologetically meaty. Perfectly cooked vegetables can be served on the side. However, as can just be made out in the photos, I have taken Dorothy Hartley’s advice and added some black-gilled mushrooms to the mix. Mushrooms have a complementary ‘meaty’ texture and their juices make a flavoursome addition to the gravy, as well as darkening it to a rich brown.
  • Buttering Your Bowls
    • This is what is going to make your puddings turn out beautifully. Use REALLY softened butter and a pastry brush to paint it on. The secret to the beautiful golden colour of the suet crust in the pictures above and below? Butter and a long slow cook in the slow cooker. Taking care to ensure every part of the inside of the bowl is buttered, will ensure a perfect pudding turnout every time.
  • Covering Your Bowls
    • The water in your slow cooker needs to come at least 3/4 of the way up your bowl(s). It never boils furiously, so there’s no danger of the water splashing over the top of the bowls. The main reason for covering your puddings is to protect from the drip of condensation from the lid. Before the advent of the pudding bowl, steamed puddings used to be covered with a floured pudding cloth, but the modern method of greased and pleated parchment and foil works very well.
  • Cooking Your Puddings Long Enough
    • This is probably the main reason things go wrong with steamed puddings, sweet or savoury. All of the old recipes suggest puddings be cooked for many hours, simmering in water which must be constantly topped up to ensure the puddings don’t boil dry. Five hours is a time frequently mentioned. Using a slow cooker has the advantage of being able to, literally, set it and forget it. No need to constantly monitor the water, as the lid keeps it all inside. No need to top up or check if it’s boiling dry. It is very difficult to overcook a suet pudding in the slow cooker. What is very easy to do, is under-cook a pudding. In her column “How To Cook The Perfect Steak and Kidney Pudding”, Felicity Cloake had little complimentary to say of Constance Spry’s cook-from-raw recipe, “The raw beef … comes out gloopy with flour, and tough as a Victorian boarding school”. In Constance’s defence, she did specify beefsteak and stewing steak had been used instead, but in my opinion the main problem was probably cook time. I trialled cooking these puddings in the slow cooker on both High and Low heat settings using raw ingredients. On High, they take 5 hours – not too bad if you’re at home all day, but not really helpful in terms of having a meal ready when you get in from work. On Low I tested puddings with cooking times of 8 hours and 10 hours. Both ended up with golden fluffy pastry and meltingly cooked filling. So provided you can get up early enough to assemble your puddings and get them cooking before you leave for work, they can be ready for supper at the end of a long day. The only suggestion I would make would be to have lots of extra gravy to hand if you’re cooking your puddings 8+ hours.

Last thing I want to have a little rant about in this marathon of a blog post, is the falsehoods I found being perpetrated ‘out there’ with respect to photographs of steak and kidney puddings. The images being posted were frequently not of the recipe they appear alongside. The worst example I found was of a photograph that has been on the internet since 2009 being posted alongside a recipe from 2022. Also, do not be deceived into thinking if you cut a wedge out of your steak and kidney pudding, the meat will tumble artfully onto the plate like many of these pictures suggest. If it does, it will leave your crust rather empty. What it will also do is ruin the structural integrity of your pudding and, if it is undercooked, cause its slow and heartbreaking collapse into a heap on the plate. Setting aside the very insipid colour of some of the pastry, even if the photo is of the actual recipe, it will have been staged for maximum eye appeal, and probably had extra filling added in order to make the image seem plentiful. I am puzzled, for example, how all this filling fit inside this pudding? If your pastry is no oil painting, do not despair, you can always drown it with the gravy (that this recipe doesn’t even tell you how to make).

So in light of these criticisms, I feel compelled to admit to the shenanigans I’ve employed in the pictures on this post. This image is from another of the test puddings, made on a different day (hence the different lighting) in a slightly smaller bowl to the one in the top picture. The ‘manipulations’ I have used include removing the top of the pudding pastry to reveal the filling, and adding in some extra gravy to increase the eye appeal. No extra filling was added and this pudding is absolutely made from the recipe below.

Steak and Kidney Pudding


These quantities are sufficient for two generous puddings in bowls of diameter 12cm. You can also put everything into a large bowl and use the longer of the cooking times. You can also increase the quantities to suit your needs. As a general guide, you need 100g beef, 40g kidney, 1 large, flat mushroom per person, but you can adjust these ratios to your liking.

For the filling:
200g beef cheek/skirt/hangar/flatiron steak, in 1.5cm pieces
80g prepared and soaked beef/ox kidney (see above), in 1.5cm pieces
2 large, dark-gilled mushrooms, chopped into 1.5cm pieces
60g cornflour
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp onion powder/granules
250ml strong beef stock
2-3tsp Worcester Sauce (optional)

For the pastry:
340g plain flour
3tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
150g dried suet (170g fresh)
85g fresh breadcrumbs

softened butter to grease the bowls

  • Butter your pudding bowls generously.
  • Tear off and butter 2 pieces of parchment to cover your puddings. The butter will help brown the pastry, and keep it from sticking. Fold a pleat across the middle of each. Set aside.
  • Tear off two pieces of foil to cover your puddings. Fold a pleat across the middle of each. Set aside.
  • Cut lengths of string to tie around the foil to keep it in place. Set aside.
  • Mix all the ingredients for the pastry.
  • Add cold water and stir gently until the mixture comes together into a soft dough.
  • Divide the dough into two. Cut off a small piece of dough to make the lid.
  • The dough is too soft to warrant using a rolling pin. Pat out the larger pieces of dough on a floured surface until about 1cm thick. Lift the dough and drop it gently into each bowl, allowing about 3cm to hang over the rim of the bowls. Be sure to patch any holes that form with extra pastry. The pastry must be ‘watertight’ to keep all the gravy from leaking out.
  • Pat out the smaller pieces of dough until 1cm thick and set aside.
  • Mix the cornflour, salt, pepper and onion powder together.
  • Toss the pieces of kidney in the seasoned cornflour . Remove any excess cornflour by tossing the pieces in a sieve over the bow. Set aside.
  • Repeat for the pieces of beef, including tossing the coated pieces in the sieve (you may need to work in batches).
  • Layer the beef, kidney and chopped mushroom until the bowls are full. The filling can be a little higher than the edge if necessary.
  • Add the Worcester sauce to the stock if using, and then pour into the puddings until the liquid is just visible below the top layer of meat.
  • Lay on the pastry lid and moisten the edges with water.
  • Fold the excess pastry over onto the lid and use a fork to seal the edges well.
  • Cover the tops of the puddings with the buttered parchment, butter side downwards.
  • Cover the parchment with foil and press closely to the sides of each bowl.
  • Tie string just under the rim of the bowls to keep the parchment/foil in place.
  • Turn your slow cooker to High or Low, depending on your schedule.
  • Place your puddings into the slow cooker.
  • Boil some water and pour carefully into the slow cooker, until the water level is ¾ of the way up the sides of the bowls.
  • Cover with the lid and cook according to your needs. On High, the puddings will take about 5 hours. On Low, they will be done in 8 hours, but can go as long as 10 hours with no deterioration in quality.
  • To serve, switch off the slow cooker and remove the puddings from the water. I find a long-handled skimmer/strainer spoon useful.
  • Cut the strings and remove the foil and parchment.
  • Place your serving dish/bowl over the puddings and turn over.
  • Lift off the bowls.
  • Serve as is with extra gravy and freshly cooked vegetables on the side, or cut the tops off the puddings and stir in some gravy to moisten before serving.
  • You can reheat the puddings by wrapping in foil (to keep from drying out) and putting into a 170°C, 150°C Fan oven, or, if using ceramic bowls, in the microwave. Alternately, keep the parchment and foil on from the original cooking, and reheat in hot water in the slow cooker on High.

Damson Ice-Cream

21st Century, Pudding

The autumn months are almost upon us and it truly is the season of mellow fruitfulness.

First among equals is the damson, a fruit I have been familiar with my whole life. Damsons are small, oval, wild plums with a signature ‘bloom’. They are different to bullaces, a different wild plum which is more round and apple-shaped. It was only a few years ago that I learned that damsons aren’t universally known, rather they are concentrated in just a few counties, namely Shropshire, Worcestershire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire and Westmorland.

Damsons are really tart – there’s no possibility of enjoying them raw – and make fabulous jams and chutneys. I particularly enjoy them in sweet dishes, because their sourness and tartness are a great foil against sugar and sweetness.

And so to this recipe. This is a fabulously simple recipe which makes beautifully soft and creamy ice-cream with just two main ingredients, plus flavouring, without the need for an ice-cream maker. This last point is especially useful if, like me, you lack worktop space. There is no need to repeatedly remove it from the freezer and stir to remove ice crystals, because they never form. You can literally mix it in minutes and freeze overnight and enjoy perfectly smooth, delicious ice-cream immediately.

The ice-cream recipes over on TimeToCookOnline include salted caramel and malt, both of which can be made with storecupboard ingredients, but I fancied adapting this recipe to use fresh fruit, and my freezer provided the ingredients. I had a bag of damsons that had been languishing there for probably three years, so their time to shine was long overdue.

The method can be used for any frozen, or indeed fresh, fruit. Most importantly, it is necessary to get rid of as much water from the fruit as possible, as it will form ice-crystals when frozen and ruin the smoothness of your ice-cream. The majority of this post will be on how you can achieve this, plus a short-cut or two.

Fruit Puree Method – Damsons

The flesh of a damson clings tightly to the stone, so the best way to separate the two is by cooking. Sweetened, stewed damsons were a regular simple pudding on the table during my childhood. One had to spoon the cooked fruit into your mouth, then discretely return the stone to the spoon and lay it on the rim of your dish. For ice-cream purposes, though, a puree is what is required.

  • Put 1kg (or more if liked) of damsons, fresh and rinsed or frozen, into a saucepan.
  • Add 3-4 tablespoons of water and cover with a lid.
  • Turn the heat to low and let the fruit gently steam/stew until soft.
  • Pour the fruit into a sieve over a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon to separate the fruit pulp from the stones and skins. Use the back of a knife to regularly scrape the pulp from the underside of the sieve. Be warned, damson juice will stain, so wear an apron and wipe up any spills promptly, especially if you have a wooden worktop.
  • When all that remains in the sieve is stones and skins (which can be discarded), measure the fruit puree and add HALF the volume of puree in granulated sugar. e.g 4 cups of juice will need 2 cups of sugar.
  • Return the puree to the pan, add the sugar and stir to dissolve.
  • Simmer over a low-medium heat until it has reduced and thickened. This may take a while, depending on the volume of puree you’re working with. There’s a lot of pectin in damsons, so if you spoon a little onto a cold plate and it sets, it’s done.
  • What you should be left with is something of the consistency of runny honey.

Sugar Absorption Method – Fresh Apricots

This method is an adaptation of a jam-making method used by ‘The Jam Fairy’ Christine Ferber. I used it with fresh apricots which I spotted recently at a bargain £1 a punnet. It takes a little longer, but preserves the fresh flavour of the fruit.

  • Slice the apricots and remove the stones.
  • Score the inner flesh with a sharp knife, being careful not to cut too deeply – the skin should remain intact.
  • Lay your apricot halves side by side in a bowl in layers, flesh-side up.
  • When you can fit no more into the layer, cover generously with granulated sugar to a depth of about 1cm.
  • Continue layering and covering with sugar until all your fruit is in the bowl.
  • Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 8-10 hours, or overnight. The sugar will draw out the juices in the apricots and in turn be drawn into the flesh of the fruit.
  • Tip the fruit and sugar mixture into a saucepan and heat very gently until all the sugar granules have dissolved. Stir occasionally.
  • When all the sugar is dissolved, bring the syrup to a boil, turn off the heat and cover the pan. Leave to stand until cool.
  • Drain the fruit from the syrup.
  • Remove the skins of the fruit. The heat of the syrup will have softened the skins as well as separating them from the apricot flesh. If you lift up each apricot half by pinching the skin at the back, it should pull away quite easily. It is likely to remain attached at the edges, in which case you can help things along by scraping the flesh away with a teaspoon. Put the flesh into a separate bowl. Discard the skins. You can keep the apricot flavoured syrup to use as a glaze for fruit tarts, buns etc.
  • Puree the flesh.
  • Taste, and add a little lemon juice to taste to sharpen the flavour, if liked.

Storecupboard Hacks

Tinned fruit in syrup has already been processed, so you could drain some tinned apricots/peaches/pears etc and puree the fruit. The flavour won’t be quite as fresh-tasting, but it’s much quicker and you can be feet up, waiting for your ice-cream to freeze in about 15 minutes.

Even quicker, you could substitute jam for the fruit. Use a good quality brand such as Bon Maman, which has compotes and conserves in a range of delicious flavours. How much you’ll need will depend on personal preferences, but I suggest starting with 300g and seeing how that goes. Warm the compote/conserve gently, then puree. You can always stir in extra as a ‘ripple’.

Damson Ice-cream

This damson ice-cream is the best ice-cream I have ever tasted. EVER. The intense sour/tartness of the fruit is a perfect foil to the intense sweetness of the condensed milk, and the result is smooth and rich and velvety, with a huge zing of ‘rippled’ damson. Gooseberries (perhaps with a dash of elderflower cordial) and rhubarb would also work well.

Despite the title, you can use this method to make any fruit ice-cream that takes your fancy. Because it was slightly runny, but intense in flavour, I used just 350ml of damson puree in the ice-cream, and another 150ml as ‘ripple’.  The apricot puree was thicker, so I mixed in a full 500ml.

600ml chilled double cream
1 x 397g tin of sweetened condensed milk
500ml sweetened damson puree – divided

  • Put the cream and the condensed milk into the bowl of a mixer.
  • Add 350ml damson puree.
  • Whip the ingredients with a balloon whisk attachment until light and fluffy.
  • Pour into a suitable plastic container.
  • Add dollops of the remaining puree and swirl through with a knife.
  • Cover and freeze overnight.

Chestnut Apple Pie

17th century, 18th century, Pastry, Pudding

Lady Grisel Baillie was a Scottish noblewoman who lived in the 17th/18th century. She was married to a Scottish MP, and became known to social historians for the meticulously detailed account books she kept, which  offer a glimpse into the cost of living during that time, including food and drink, servants wages, travel costs and entertainment. Lady Grisel was also something of a foodie, as she noted down many a menu from various dinners she and her husband attended.

Extracts of Lady Grisel’s household books were published by the Scottish Historical Society in 1911 and over the years I have dipped into this book many times, and have been somewhat frustrated that menus are recorded, but not recipes. She definitely had a recipe book, because the Scottish Historical Society lists it amongst her papers:

“Lady Grisell left three ‘Day Books’ folio size, the first running from 1692 to 1718 inclusive, and containing 442 pages ; the second from 1719 to 1742 inclusive, and containing 354 pages, and the third from 1742 to the date of her death (6th December 1746), continued by her daughter, Lady Murray. She also left books containing the accounts of expenses in connection with their journeys to Bath and to the Continent ; Books containing Inventories of Bottles, etc. ; a Book of Receipts ; a Book of Bills of Fare ; Books relating to estate management during the years 1742, 1743 and 1744, and many other Account and Memoranda Books.”

A few years ago, I revisited a manuscript at the Folger Library to study a recipe for Stilton Cheese that had caught my eye, (the results of which can be found in Petits Propos Culinaires 114, June 2019), and in the course of my research, discovered that the manuscript in which it appeared was the long-lost recipe book of Lady Grisel Baillie! The manuscript had been purchased by the Folger Library in June, 1959 from the London bookseller Francis Edwards, Ltd. for the princely sum of £35.00. More intriguing is what happened to it during the preceding 48 years, from 1911, when its existence was noted by the Scottish Historical Society, and its purchase and trans-Atlantic voyage in 1959, and why the current Mellerstain estate owners didn’t know where it was. Very mysterious!

The point of this extended preamble is that this recipe comes from that self-same, long-lost recipe book. It has been on my radar for a while, because it is a sweet pie with chestnuts, and when I spotted nets of fresh chestnuts in the shops this week, I was enthused to have a stab at it.

A Cheston Pye, from the cookbook of Lady Grisel Baillie, Folger Digital Image Collection, Ms W.a.111, p289, circa 1706.

Which also brings me to the word of the day: scald. Both apples and chestnuts are scalded in this recipe, and after much hunting about reading other usages, the best definition I can come up with is: cooked gently in their skins. When scalded, the apple skin will peel off by itself freely, leaving the partially cooked flesh intact. I suspect this was done to prevent wastage, preserve flavour and minimise juice. Similarly, the chestnuts are scalded in order to soften them and to loosen both the skin and the pith surrounding the nut. This all sounds simple, but, from experience, left unsupervised, things can get a little tricky. It doesn’t take much for the water in which the apples are scalding to become too hot, thereby causing the apples to burst, and then you have to retrieve your apple pulp from the ‘soup’ in the saucepan. Scald the chestnuts for too long, and then you will have difficulty extracting them whole. This isn’t too much of a disaster, as the crumbled pieces are perfect for this dish, but if you were wanting them for another use – candying, for example – the wastage in broken nuts can get quite high.

Why you should make this pie

Well, it’s absolutely delicious, that’s why! It’s unusual, in that it is a sweet pie with chestnuts, and thus something of a novelty in modern recipes. During the long, slow baking, the pastry crisps up beautifully, and the chestnuts and candied lemon soak up some of the apple juice and become soft. The texture of the apples and the chestnuts is much more interesting that a regular apple pie and the contrast between the filling and the two different types of pastry is a delight. This pie embodies autumn in a deliciously comforting way, you’ll be elbowing your way back to the nets of chestnuts to make it again. Perfect for the upcoming holiday season!

Sliced of Chestnut Apple Pie
Slices of Chestnut Apple Pie: The pie slices very neatly when cold, and the chestnuts and candied lemon peel are shown.

Chestnut and Apple Pie

These quantities are for a 20cm diameter pie. You can obviously use as many or as few chestnuts as you like. You can, of course, shorten the prep time by using stewed apple and ready-cooked chestnuts. The only caveat to this I would add is that the ready-cooked chestnuts you can buy tend to be a little dark, whereas if you scald them yourself, they come out very similar in colour to the apple pulp.

If you’re making this from scratch, prepare the apples and chestnuts a day or so ahead, and then assemble the pie when required. The cooked apples and chestnuts will keep in the fridge several days.

Filling
4 Bramley Apples (or 600g unsweetened stewed apple)
1 x 400g net of raw chestnuts (or 300g cooked chestnuts)
30g candied lemon peel
30g unsalted butter
3-4tbs caster sugar
3tbs cornflour
zest of 1/2 a lemon (optional)

1 x box of ready rolled puff pastry
egg-white for glazing

Base Pastry
225g plain flour
60g cornflour
140g unsalted butter
ice cold water

  • Put the flours and butter into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  • With the machine running, gradually add the cold water a tablespoon at a time until the mixture comes together in a ball.
  • Tip the mixture onto a floured surface, knead smooth.
  • Roll out the pastry to the desired thickness (5mm) and line a greased, 20cm pie tin. Ease the pastry into the corners of the tin, rather than stretch it, and allow the excess to hang over the edges of the tin.
  • Place in the fridge to chill until required.

To scald the apples

  • Put the apples, whole, into a saucepan and add just enough water to cover.
  • Lay a saucer upside-down on top of the apples, to keep them submerged.
  • Put the saucepan on a gentle heat (I use 5 on a 1-9 scale) and allow the apples to barely simmer for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, and if the skin starts to split, remove from the heat and the water immediately.
  • Lift the scalded apples out of the pan and set aside to cool.
  • When cool enough to handle, peel away the skin and then scoop all the flesh from the core.
  • Mash the apple pulp with a fork. You don’t need to make it puree-smooth, just get rid of the larger lumps.
  • Mix the sugar and cornflour together and then add to the apple pulp and mix thoroughly.
  • Taste the apple pulp and add more sugar to taste.
  • Set the apple pulp aside until required.

To scald the chestnuts

  • Using a sharp knife, cut a slit ito each nut, being sure to pierce bith the hard outer shell and the soft skin underneath.
  • Put the nuts into a saucepan and cover with cold water.
  • Set pan on a gentle heat, and simmer the chestnuts for 30 minutes.
  • Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the water.
  • Remove the chestnuts one at a time and peel away the softened shell and skin. Don’t worry if the nut doesn’t come out whole, as pieces are perfect for this recipe. Don’t drain the chestnuts, because the shells will harden quickly once out of the water, and make peeling them difficult.
  • Crumble the chestnuts into pieces – not too small – and store in a covered container in the fridge until required.

To assemble the pie.

  • Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
  • Slice the candied lemon peel into thin slivers. If you don’t have whole pieces, diced is fine, just make sure they’re not too big.
  • Divide the butter into three. Keep chilled until required.
  • Remove the pie tin from the fridge and trim the excess pastry. Leave about a 2cm overhang from the edge of the tin.
  • Fill the pie
    • Add a layer of apple pulp.
    • Add half the chestnuts in a layer
    • Add half the lemon peel
    • Dot over 1 portion of the butter in thin slices.
    • Add a layer of apple pulp.
    • Add half the chestnuts in a layer
    • Add half the lemon peel
    • Dot over 1 portion of the butter in thin slices.
    • Add a layer of apple pulp.
    • Dot over the last portion of the butter in thin slices.
    • Grate over the zest of half a lemon (optional). I like the lemony zing, but it can be omitted if you prefer.
  • Unroll the puff pastry and smooth out with a few strokes of the rolling pin.
  • Wet the edges of the shortcrust pastry with water.
  • Lay the puff pastry over the top of the pie and press the edges together gently.
  • Trim the puff pastry to the size of the shortcrust pastry.
  • Crimp the pastry edges as shown in the top photograph.
  • Cut out decorations for the top of the pie from the puff pastry offcuts and lay them on the pastry lid. I did a few apples and chestnuts.
  • Brush the top of the pie with eggwhite.
  • Bake the pie for 60 minutes. Turn the pie around after 30 minutes to ensure even colouring.
  • After a further 20 minutes, if your puff pastry isn’t quite cooked through, turn the heat up to 220°C, 200°C Fan for the last 10 minutes.
  • Remove the pie from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
  • Remove the pie from the tin and allow to cool until just warm.
  • Serve with double cream.

Almacks

18th century, 19th century, Preserves, Pudding, Tracklements

Almacks (also Almack’s and Almack) is one of many recipes that have originated from people copying dishes they have enjoyed whilst eating out. Almack’s was a Georgian/Regency London club where the great and the good could socialise during ‘the season’, Pontacks is another such establishment, now equally long gone, whose reputation remains only in the names of recipes they have inspired.

By the end of the 18th century, being presented at the Royal court was deemed old fashioned for the up and coming ladies in society, so Almacks provided a setting whereby  socialising and marriage alliances could be conducted amongst the ‘Ton’. As an example of the importance of Almack’s in the social life of the capital, when Lady Caroline Lamb published ‘Glenarvon’, with a thinly-fictionalised Lord Byron as the main character, Sarah Villiers, Lady Jersey, was so incensed at the way she had been satirised, she barred Lady Caroline from Almacks in 1816, thereby making her a social outcast *gasps and clutches pearls*. Although Lady Caroline eventually managed to regain membership three years later, thanks mainly to the assistance of her cousin, Emily Lamb (Countess Cowper), her reputation never recovered.

Almacks provided refreshments to its member and this thick fruit ‘cheese’ would have been ideal as it has great keeping qualities and is easy to serve at short notice. It can be eaten a number of ways: as a sweet, with cream or as a savoury, with biscuits and cheese. It is also versatile in its preparation as it can be varied by type of apple, pear and plum, thus giving it subtle changes in flavour with each batch. It is an ideal way to use up gluts of fruit, or to waste-not-want-not with windfalls.

Almack recipe (1785-1825) from MS1827, Wellcome Collection.

This is the earliest recipe I have found, coming from a household manuscript dated 1785-1825. The quantities are huge, even allowing for a loss of volume during the cooking. A peck of apples is roughly 6 kg, so it calls for a total of 18kg of prepared fruit, although it’s probably going to be closer to 20 kg by the time you factor in weight loss due to peeling/coring/chopping.

Almack recipe, (1800-1822) from MS1830, Wellcome Collection

This is a recipe with slightly more reasonable quantities – 3 quarts of each fruit = 7.5kg, but in the end I thought the recipe from Elizabeth Pease (below) was both the simplest and most reasonable in terms of batch size.

Elizabeth Pease’s recipe for Almacks (1802-1871) in MS3824, Wellcome Collection.

Admittedly, it does take a few things for granted such as expecting readers to know the method and how to prepare the fruit, but I’ll be filling you in on those in the recipe below.

So how much Almacks you make is really up to you and what you have to hand. As a guide, I used 750g of prepared apples and pears and 800g damsons (to allow for the stones) and it made 8 generous portions as seen in the photo above, and about 400g in a box for more casual use. The damsons add a real tang to the paste, and the low quantity of sugar means it sits right on the edge between sweet and savoury. Serve (small) portions with a drizzle of cream and a biscuit (ratafias, macaroons, etc) for crunch as a dessert, or with your favourite cheese and crackers.

Almacks

I’ve reduced the quantities, so you can make a small batch to try, but you can scale it up quite easily if you have it in mind to pot and gift it for Christmas.

500g peeled, cored and chopped apples
500g peeled, cored and chopped pears
500g plums/damsons, stones removed if possible
500g demerera sugar.

  • Cook the fruit. You want it soft enough so that it can be sieved easily. This can be done a couple of ways:
    • layer the fruit and sugar into a large casserole  (preferably ceramic or enamelled) and put it in the oven, uncovered, at 150°C, 130°C Fan for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring every 15 minutes to make sure the fruit floating on top of the juice doesn’t dry out.
    • Put the fruit and sugar into a slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours. This method generates more juice, as it won’t evaporate as much as it does in the oven, but it has the advantage of being able to be left unattended for an extended period of time.
  • Sieve the cooked fruit until nothing is left but skin and (possibly) damson pits.
  • Simmer the puree in a preserving pan until no excess liquid is visible when you draw a spoon across the pan, and it’s just fruit puree. This will take rather a long time, if you used the slow-cooker method, due to the extra juice.
  • You MUST stir the pan, otherwise the puree will burn. Towards the end, it will turn into fruit LAVA< so have a towel cover your arm handy, to avoid the hot splashes.
  • When your puree is ready, spoon it into moulds or hot, sterilised jars as you would for jam. Silicone moulds are great, especially if you’re making Almacks to serve at a special meal – although you don’t need a special occasion to serve some delicious fruit cheese in a pretty shape. The flexibility of the silicone makes it very simple to turn out the paste, once cold.